


The Days of Uncivil Remembrance

by WhileonEarth



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhileonEarth/pseuds/WhileonEarth
Summary: Hello, everyone, hope you're doing alright. This is the first fic I post, so that's exciting, yayy. I hope you like it and that you let me know what you think about it. Also, if you like teaching things and stuff, I truly appreciate any commentary and corrections on my writing, as I'm not a native English speaker (I've studied English since I was 7) and I'm always working to improve. Thanks! Take care, y'all. Keep rocking the world.Tumblr: 65inchesofmagic





	

       Have you ever had something happen to you that immediately, almost magically, makes something go pop somewhere in your brain, producing a memory of your distant past which you were convinced you had erased? Well, that is what happened to Tobin Heath on the day it all began. She was reading a book, just like she had that other time. She was sitting on grass, nearby a soccer field, on which her friends were playing, exactly like that other time. That was the weird part, the eerie coincidences that made her feel as if she were living that day once again. The only thing different was the girl that had shouted at her, but even so this girl had a number 17 printed on her jersey, just like-  _she_  had that other goddam forgotten day.

       She was reading her perfectly pleasurable book when she heard "Hemingway-Shakespeare, shoot the ball back!", the same words she had once heard from the person whose face-memory was the only thing she could now see as a result. She felt an immobilizing chill running through her body, her sight frozen in only that image. Her hearing wasn't affected, even so, as the girl's voice shouted again "Hey, did you hear me?", followed by the other players' "Tobin!", "the ball, Tobin!", and shortly after, her friend Kelley's prominent "Tobin, pass the ball!", which was what finally broke her out of her state to stand up, pick up the ball, and kick it to them. She sat again on her spot, dropping her arms over her lap, eyes looking forward at nothing, completely still. After thirty seconds she realized she wasn't breathing, and so she gulped in one take the most air volume possible, while also making a side movement in raising her left hand to grab at her hair roots, harder than what she felt. Her mind couldn't focus on anything different from the memory of her. _Christen_ , she tried the name in her mind, and it felt overwhelming. It was overwhelming to have all those memories of that woman come back to her after so much time - three years, she calculated vaguely - of her not having dedicated one single thought to her. She felt shocked at that realization.

       It was only fifteen minutes later when her friends finished playing that she took notice that half of her book was trapped under her butt and thigh. Kelley jogged to get to her first. She took notice of Tobin's shaken state at once, saw her liberating the book from her body weight before standing up.

       "Hey Tobs," she hesitated before adding, "you alright?"

       "No, I'm—" Tobin felt her voice weak and shallow inside her, "did you hear what she say?"

       "Who, Claire? ...yeah...it gave me a feeling of déjà vu..." Kelley just didn't want to mention her name. She had promised once to Tobin she wouldn't, and she has stuck to her word so far.

       "Kelley, it was the same words...the same exact..." Tobin replied in despair, her mind didn't know what to do with itself.

       "No way, Tob. Similar words, not quite the same."

       Tobin fervently shook her head left and right. "No, no, no, no, Kelley, I know it was the same words! ...the same exact phrase."

       "Well, Tobs, coincidences can happen. You know you've had that Hemmingway nickname for quite some time," Kelley tried to reassure her. Tobin could only swallow her uneasiness down her throat.

       “Tob?” Kelley said with a special delicate affection, one she used in very few occasions. “What’s the matter?” Tobin could feel Kelley’s caring hand on her forearm, but she felt at the same time disconnected from the conversation and reality.

       “I—” Tobin tried but couldn’t find her voice. She tried again some seconds later. “I…feel—” It was then that the others made it to them.

       "Hey guys, we were saying it's time to tank up the belly, so we're headed to Burger Place, you in?" said their fellow junior friend Meghan Klingenberg.

       Kelley looked at Tobin, who didn't take much time before mumbling out "No Kling, I'm off to my dorm."

       "Oh come on, we haven't hung out with you since the end of last semester."

      "Next time, Kling, I'll make sure of it," intervened Kelley, wrapping her right arm over Tobin's shoulders, taking her aside from Kling ("Okay, see you then!") and towards their dorm room. When the others said their goodbyes, Kelley answered for them both.

       Kelley had always been protective of Tobin, from the very moment they met when she stood up for Tobin against mean kids' offense. Now people often joked that Kelley was Tobin's personal bodyguard. Kelley laughed willingly at all those jokes, but inside she felt proud every time of receiving that title. She knew her best friend very well, so seeing her in this never-seen-before state of aloofness did put her at a loss as to how to help her. Should she ask Tobin "what's wrong", or "what are you thinking"? Better distract her with something? Wait for her to speak and just be there? Tobin did seem like she was going through something inside her head, in a world that wasn’t this one.

       It made her jolt a little when Tobin began speaking not much after, as they were halfway to their dorm. “It’s the first time I think of her after I asked you not to mention her again.”

 _Ever again_ , Kelley automatically recalled Tobin’s words from that moment. What Tobin said made her feel a bit confused. “Uhm, you mean thinking of her in detail?”

       “No, Kel.”

       “Then?”

       “Thinking of her at all.”

       Kelley had to blink then, as she always had to express her emotions in some physical way. Now she was something more than a bit confused. “Uhm, you mean you haven’t– hadn’t, umm, thought about her in any way, in any day…for the briefest moment…or in any dream…?” Tobin was shaking her head no along the suggestions listed by Kelley, and Kelley didn’t know how to react to that, and so they remained quiet for the rest of their walk.

       Tobin perched herself on the window sill, and Kelley sat on her bed, thinking. She tried to imagine that she hadn’t thought of Christen at all for about three years until a random thing brought her up again. She always tried to put herself in others’ shoes, but this time her little exercise seemed impossible to her, because she _had_ thought about Christen countless times, both voluntarily and not. Not to have done so seemed to her something…simply _absurd_.

       “How did you do it?” Kelley finally asked, and she didn’t have to explain to Tobin what she was asking.

       Tobin took her time to answer. She seemed to be drawing with her index a pattern on the window. “I just committed to it, like I committed to always be there for you.”

       “Why?”

       “Because.”

       “Tobin, please.”

       “There’s nothing more to it, Kel.”

       Kelley almost blurted out “Like hell there isn’t!” Instead she tried to convey to Tobin “I know you are lying” with her stare as best as she could. She knew she had succeeded when Tobin hurried to escape her look and concentrated on the view outside the window once again.

       There was only one thing that Tobin had ever been dishonest to Kelley about: the subject of Christen Press. The game of “I know you’re lying” and “I know that you know I’m lying” they had been playing for a long time, but Kelley hadn’t found another solution apart from keep on playing their game and keep on waiting. Keep on trying to figure it out on her own, also; figure out why Christen affected Tobin so much, and why it had been that way since always, and why it made Tobin hurt.

       “Tobs,” Kelley said very softly again.

       “Yeah?”

       “I’m here if you need to talk, you know that, right?”

       It made Tobin smile because she had heard that same offer expressed in different ways, _so many_ times. “Yeah, Kel, I know.”

       Kelley waited for a minute or so. “So…I’m going to take a shower now.”

       “It was time you did that...”

       “Tobin, don’t st-“

       “…Stinky panties.” Tobin cracked a huge grin, and Kelley couldn’t help but return it. She loved how they always got over the gloomy stuff so easily.

       Tobin was now making her way to Kelley on the bed. “You go take a glorious, resurrecting shower, and then coat your skin with that heavenly lotion of yours, or whatever. Meanwhile, I’ll be down getting myself some coffee and snacks.” She then lowered her face to Kelley’s head to peck her forehead. “You are the best friend I could ever ask for,” she said, and their mirror-smiles flowed naturally on their faces.

       “Do you want anything?”

       “Umm, how about dinner later? I’m _dying_ for a tasty Trattoria dish.”

       “Why did I know you were going to ask for that? You have a deal.” She sealed it with a wink and left the room.

       Tobin sat in a table at the cafeteria, waiting for her coffee to cool off, at the same time that she tried to dissipate the guiltiness she felt for closing off to Kelley, once again. She hated that she wasn’t ready to be honest with her best friend about this, but her affliction was by far a greater force. She knew she could never stop being grateful for having the understanding, patient, and caring friend she had in Kelley. For now, she would have to deal with this situation by herself, and when it got overwhelming, she knew Kelley would be there, like always. As she thought of this, she was also trying to make the memories stop coming back, as they had been since the ball had hit her arm and interrupted her now-forsaken reading. It was useless. She only succeeded when she focused hard enough in something else, like when she had been talking to Kelley, and if she was honest with herself, she had to accept the problem was that she wished, deep down, to remember. She felt hundreds of images popping up in her mind, forming a sort of collage, ever-growing and unstable: She could see a scowling girl taking off her earbuds, a kiss under a huge oak tree, a spinning bottle at the center of a circle of kids, a ball sliding across a muddy soccer field, a splash sound breaking the quietness of a lake, the laughter of three happy girls on a Halloween night, the best ever smile she has been the causal of, and most repetitively, the look in her eyes as she looked upon them for the last time. That image would haunt her in her sleep that night.

     

       Tobin’s mood improved quite some once they were in their favorite restaurant, with two impressive lasagnas in front of them and their inevitable lively conversation on whatever topic. This time it was Tobin dominating over the silly-funny commentary, effectively making Kelley laugh her ass off for more than an hour straight. What Kelley didn’t know was that Tobin was killing two flies with one slap: she got to take her mind off Christen (there was no point in neglecting the name now), and make it up to her best friend.

       When they got back to their dorm room with full bellies and calm spirits, they only had energy enough to take off shoes and change into comfortable clothes before plopping down on Kelley’s bed to do their usual whisper-talk before falling asleep. It was around 5:00 when Kelley was woken up to something Tobin was doing for the first time ever once again, not so many hours after the first thing: She was talking in her sleep, her voice low-tuned and panic-toned, calling for “Christen”, begging “Christen…no, please…don’t”. After Kelley’s surprise wore down, she started shushing her and rubbing on her arm and shoulder, telling her “it’s okay, Tob”, and hoping it was useful for something.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone, hope you're doing alright. This is the first fic I post, so that's exciting, yayy. I hope you like it and that you let me know what you think about it. Also, if you like teaching things and stuff, I truly appreciate any commentary and corrections on my writing, as I'm not a native English speaker (I've studied English since I was 7) and I'm always working to improve. Thanks! Take care, y'all. Keep rocking the world.
> 
> Tumblr: 65inchesofmagic


End file.
